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HIGH POINT, N.C., Oct. 25, 2013 – High Point University will feature poet Terry Kennedy and fiction writer Drew Perry as part of the Phoenix Reading Series. The event will be held at 7 p.m. on Nov. 6 in the Francis Auditorium of Phillips Hall. It is free and open to the public; no tickets are required.

Kennedy is author of the limited edition chapbook “Until the Clouds Shatter the Light that Plates our Lives.” His work appears in numerous literary journals and magazines, including Cave Wall, From the Fishouse, Southern Review and Waccamaw, and has been honored with a Randall Jarrell Fellowship, as well as fellowships to the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. He currently serves as associate director of the Graduate Program in Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and serves as editor for the online journal storySouth. His new collection, “New River Breakdown,” was released recently from Unicorn Press.

Perry is author of “This is Just Exactly Like You,” which was a finalist for the Flaherty-Dunnan prize from the Center for Fiction, a Best-of-the-Year pick from The Atlanta Journal Constitution and a SIBA Okra pick. He teaches writing at Elon University and wrote the novel, “Kids These Days,” which will be released in January 2014 by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.

“Terry Kennedy and Drew Perry will read from their new and upcoming works. Terry will be celebrating the release of his new collection, while Drew will be reading in anticipation of his new novel,” says Matt Fiander, instructor of English at HPU. “This is an exciting reading for us from two up-and-coming writers who are also local. It allows us to show HPU students the vibrant literature being created right in our backyard. We’ve had readers and scholars from all over the world coming as part of the Phoenix Reading Series this year, and it’s great to be able to include two writers who work so close to home.”

The event, co-sponsored by HPU’s English and foreign language departments, is part of the Phoenix Reading Series, a new extension of the four-decade-old Phoenix Festival at HPU.